02:06PM EDT - "We've opened a new chapter in our partnership with Verizon Wireless" Verizon will carry the 8X and the Lumia 822, by thanksgiving. Hence why we see those Verizon COWs outside (Cell On Wheel). Verizon will also carry the Samsung Odyssey.

02:04PM EDT - The HTC 8X is up next. I think HTC has really pulled all the stops out with their industrial design this time around with dramatic colors.

02:03PM EDT - Next up is the Samsung Ativ S which is Samsung's WP8 high end hardware entry - big battery, light, thin

01:46PM EDT - Private messages can be sent between members in the private room, including location. There are shared calendars and photos as well.

01:45PM EDT - The People Hub has a new feature called Rooms which allows invited users to share data

01:45PM EDT - The Kid's Corner Twitter anecdote is a bit interesting since I haven't seen the sandboxing apply to application data quite yet, but that could've been something specific to my build

01:44PM EDT - Ok back to Windows Phone 8 now

01:41PM EDT - Jessica is talking about how she had her daughter inadvertently text gibberish to her 4 million followers at one point.

01:38PM EDT - Jessica Alba is on stage talking about the utility of Kid's corner

01:34PM EDT - This is the first smartphone platform with a feature that roughly approximates multi-user support

01:33PM EDT - Kid's corner is basically like a guest account for WP8

01:32PM EDT - Kid's corner creates essentially a guest account with access to a whitelist of services and applications

01:31PM EDT - The next feature mitigates the worry associated with handing a child a smartphone and worrying about them deleting a text message, replying, or making expensive in-app purchases

01:29PM EDT - The first mobile operator to offer DataSense will be Verizon Wireless

01:28PM EDT - I haven't had a chance to play with DataSense pages, but this is interesting if Microsoft can do it without visibly altering images

01:27PM EDT - DataSense works with the internal data use counter and also changes depending on how close to your limit you are, this requires carrier involvement

01:27PM EDT - WP8 includes a feature called DataSense which compresses assets on webpages, think Opera Mini or how RIM used to do the same thing

01:23PM EDT - Pandora in WP8 will include a whole year of free music with no ads, interesting

01:23PM EDT - Pandora for WP8 will be coming early in 2013

01:22PM EDT - Temple Run, written using the Unity game engine will be coming to WP8. Urbanspoon as well will be coming, and uses the speech to text engine in WP8

01:21PM EDT - 46 of the top 50 most popular apps on other platforms will be on Windows Phone

01:20PM EDT - There are a bunch of apps already updated for WP8 on the current slide being shown, Joe is talking about Skype for WP8 an the way it is integrated into the OS without just being a straight background task

01:19PM EDT - There's a new version of Twitter just for Windows Phone 8 with notification support, faster app resume, and a new live tile.

01:18PM EDT - Facebook is being used as an example application that can customize the lock screen and push photos to it

01:17PM EDT - Apps can now customize the background image, a line of detailed text at the bottom, or the five smaller icons at the very bottom

01:17PM EDT - Windows Phone 8 now includes a new lock screen with at a glance icons at the bottom and the ability to display customized relevant information from third and first party apps

01:16PM EDT - Applications that integrate into the Wallet feature, into the Hubs, and new lock screen are Live Apps

01:15PM EDT - Back in June we saw the smaller new Live Tiles size and how tiles are resizable between those three sizes, talking about those now

01:14PM EDT - Joe is really driving home how WP8 is the most personal smartphone operating system out there yet.

01:13PM EDT - There's a video playing now showing windows phone being used in different contexts and by different people, so far nothing new beyond the revamped icon grid

01:11PM EDT - Windows Phone has a focus on people for its core experience

01:11PM EDT - Joe is calling the grid of icons a tired old metaphor that even Android emulated from the original iPhone. I would say this goes all the way back to the Palm days.

01:10PM EDT - Joe is talking about how the core of the smartphone experience across every platform hasn't really changed in 5 years since the original iPhone

01:09PM EDT - 191 countries can get access to the Windows Phone Store now

Did they not update the alerting system? This is one of the major downfalls of WP7.5. They added the ability to have other ringtones, but not for text messaging. The alert system needs to be more robust if WP8 is to compete against the other operating systems available.Reply

...I can't say I like it. The old one let you know that there was more to the right and the little bouncy arrow added some character. Now it's a bland array of squares with nothing to suggest to new users that there are more options to be had with a swipe to the left.

I feel like Microsoft has lost sight of what the Metro design language was about: simplicity, efficiency, and intuitiveness. With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8, they've lost the "intuitive" part.

Windows Phone 8 feels like a marginal upgrade to Windows Phone 7.5 at best, and apart from NFC I can't honestly see why they couldn't enable many of these features in an update to Windows Phone 7. I was expecting something a little more profound with WP8, now I don't think I'll be upgrading my Omnia 7 with another Windows device.Reply